The first thing that you notice is the writing. What a difference it makes. Retarded dialogues in FO3 have made conversations with NPCs very painful. Fortunately, it's no longer the case. The game is well written, which is a big plus in my book.

The beginning is also much improved. As you probably know you were delivering a package, but instead of the payment, got a bullet in your head and a comment that the game was rigged and you've never had a chance.

You wake up in a small Wild West-looking and talking settlement. A local doc patches you up and sets you on your way. Fortunately (once again), you are not concerned with missing relatives past their prime. You want to know why you got shot and who did it.

The setting so far is very Wild West-like. I don't get the Fallout vibe at all, to be honest, but after Fallout 3 I'll gladly accept anything that's not retarded.

I went exploring. Ran into a guy who asked me to save his girlfriend who was up on some ridge fighting off geckos. I cringed but continued. Killed a bunch of geckos with my knife to preserve the precious ammo, but instead of a girl I found some supplies. The bastard lied about the girlfriend and wanted me to clear the path to the supplies for him. He attacked me and almost killed me since the geckos did a good job bringing my HPs down.

The precious ammo isn't that precious. The game continues the proud Fallout 3 tradition of giving you tons of shit. I have three different pistols, a shotgun, two rifles, and plenty of ammo for each weapon.

PS. I'm playing on the hardcore difficulty. So far no crashes or technical problems of any kind.

There's food and water all over the place. I rarely get more than three more into my stack of purified water before I get more to replace what I drank.

It's only when you're doing a lot of traveling that the water consumption becomes an issue. The food consumption is a big nothing.

I've played further in than Vince had at the time of his posting, and I'd really like to comment about the pacing: rather than start you off with a dull humdrum as has been the Fallout tradition (even Bethesda managed to keep it alive) this time you actually start in an interesting place. Unlike Fallout 3 following the main quest will take you to side cities that have quest lines of their own which actually give you reason to go off the beaten path and find new stuff.

Also you can get a companion easily within the first couple of hops along the main quest, provided you side quest in the areas the main quest brings you. I had been worried that the NPCs would be twits in combat, but this one is quite handy to have around.

I got dehydrated after an hour of playing. I had two bottles of dirty water, they helped. It's not a major element, i.e. it's not a survival game. It's a little optional thing that makes you pay attention to your food/water/rest meters. It's hard to find clean food/water, so most of it is contaminated and will increase your rad level.

Healing is slow and you take damage fast in combat, so I don't think that you can fake health regen. Also, each item has time effect, for example, increase your health for the next 5 seconds at a certain rate. So if you take 2 items, you don't get 10 seconds, but 6.

Ah, thanks. That doesnt sound that bad even if it could have been better.Shame water and food are so abundant because that means that detrimental effects of not having any for some time virtually never kick in. As i understand hunger and thirst should reduce your stats and skills...

Good to hear about stimpacks and healing.

Companion Ai is one of the biggest problems i saw in the reviews so far which mention their running into enemies regardless of their strength and dying as the biggest problem, even if you set their commands differently via the companion wheel.It seems the only solution is to have them wait at some spot while you take care of things in such cases.

Shame really. Would be grateful if you guys could investigate this in more detail since its one of my dearest features from the originals and i hoped it would work well.

I know/have read you can use companions in nice ways but it seems they need a lot of babysitting and care because their Ai is either very bad or non-existing.

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My first axiom: Never, ever think about or make any conclusions about life, universe and everything else while youre depressed, suffering a trauma, a tragedy and or being drunk.

The RPS article gave me the impression that the survival elements were a complete joke. I'm glad to hear that they're at least reasonable.It will fall to modders to fully realize that part of the game's potential for sure.

Glad to hear about the quests and such. Praise from Vince for RPG writing is high praise indeed.

Companion Ai is one of the biggest problems i saw in the reviews so far which mention their running into enemies regardless of their strength and dying as the biggest problem, even if you set their commands differently via the companion wheel.It seems the only solution is to have them wait at some spot while you take care of things in such cases.

Shame really. Would be grateful if you guys could investigate this in more detail since its one of my dearest features from the originals and i hoped it would work well.

I know/have read you can use companions in nice ways but it seems they need a lot of babysitting and care because their Ai is either very bad or non-existing.

I have no idea what companion they have, but my guy I gave a suit of medium armor I had found, and he was able to effortlessly shred a group of turrets that had ripped me apart. He walked right into a room full of three or four Protectrons and tore them a new one without getting hurt. I think this guy's a keeper.

And after I made my last post I realized that there was actually a companion I could have gotten earlier, but I didn't realize that I was being sent on a local quest line and not a "when you get to New Vegas" quest line. I think.

Anyway, the survival stuff is going to be a non-issue if you sensibly take the time to acquire supplies and spend 6-8 pounds of your inventory on it. I carry around too much purified water, but I like its minor healing effect too. Still, I don't think they could have made you require much more food or water without becoming very unrealistic. And I'm not sure how much my Vault 13 canteen is affecting my need for water. Still plenty of it to go around that I'm not buying, so it can't be that bad.

Stim packs, initially for me, restore 8hp every second over six seconds. The effects also stack so if you use two at the same time, you'll get double the healing for example.

comments?

If i get this right, taking two doubles the amount of healed points but not the duration, or increases duration very slightly on top of that as Vince said?

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I have no idea what companion they have, but my guy I gave a suit of medium armor I had found, and he was able to effortlessly shred a group of turrets that had ripped me apart. He walked right into a room full of three or four Protectrons and tore them a new one without getting hurt. I think this guy's a keeper.

Are you sure its not a bug?It does seem a bit too much, unless those protectrons are supposed to be that weak which , judging by tearing you to shreds they are not.

« Last Edit: October 20, 2010, 07:06:24 am by Hiver »

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My first axiom: Never, ever think about or make any conclusions about life, universe and everything else while youre depressed, suffering a trauma, a tragedy and or being drunk.

Thanks, Vince. I'm enjoying it quite a bit too - I'm only a few hours in, but already having way more fun than I did with AP.

Hardcore mode definitely makes things more interesting, and I'm trying to avoid my typical OH NO SOMETHING BAD HAPPENED WHERE'S MY RELOAD KEY reflex. For example. I walked over a couple of mines that damaged a leg and arm, and since reloading seems to avoid the entire point of Hardcore mode, I had to use a doctor's bag for one of the injuries and drag myself to a doctor for the other. Good stuff.

I think it makes sense that hunger goes up slower than thirst - after all, you can go a lot longer without food than without water. What annoys me is having to go into the PIP Boy to see specific Food/Water/Sleep levels, but such is the GameBryo engine.

Maybe it's a cheap tactic, but I love the ambient, old-school Fallout music. It really adds something that was missing in FO3, I think. I also found the starting town (Good Springs) to be quite atmospheric and (sorry) immersive - it didn't feel like a gimmicky FO3 community, which was nice. As Vince pointed out, the way you start the story is definitely more interesting. None of that "HAVE YOU SEEN MY FATHER HE'S A MIDDLE AGED MAN" bullshit, and it's refreshing to start a Fallout game without being a vault dweller, for once.

Unlike Vince, I'd say it does feel like Fallout in ways FO3 never did...but that could just be because I'm nostalgic and easily influenced by music. *cough*

No bugs so far, beyond the usual GameByro shit, so nothing to report there. Looking forward to playing more tonight!

Hasn't it already been a long while since Fallout 3 was released? Man, so Obsidian took their time with this game, which happens infrequently.

By the way, yes, it's a prejudgment based on another player's prejudgment, but you starting off a game after somebody set you up and put a bullet on your head, and with this stranger and bleaker looking environment, it already looks really promising.